High levels of dopamine and a related hormone, norepinephrine, are released during attraction. These chemicals make us giddy, energetic, and euphoric, even leading to decreased appetite and insomnia – which means you actually can be so “in love” that you can't eat and can't sleep.
It starts with a crush
Recognizing a potential reward in the making, the VTA begins producing a chemical called dopamine, often called the “feel-good” neurotransmitter. Dopamine also plays a role in movement, motivation, mental focus, psychosis, even the production of breast milk.
According to a study published in Psychological Medicine, having romantic feelings for someone can increase your serotonin levels. Serotonin is a hormone in your body that plays a role in feelings of happiness and anxiety.
Oxytocin, the so-called love hormone, activates feelings of trust and attraction between people when it is released in the brain, and it rises in the early stages of romantic love.
When you have a crush on someone, the levels of dopamine in your body are elevated, causing feelings of both exhilaration and anxiety. See, you can thank dopamine for the way that your heart beats out of your chest and your hand trembles when you try to talk to her.
There are five components to attraction and developing a crush: physical attractiveness, proximity, similarity, reciprocity, and familiarity. We are often drawn to people who are similar to us as well as people who remind us of loved ones whether that be parents, past partners, or friends.
The emotional tumult of an intense crush comes from the combination of dopamine-driven reward, noradrenaline-driven arousal, and hormonally-driven bonding. Those wonderful feelings of giddy highs when they smile at us, laugh at our jokes, show interest in us and seem to care?
Your dopamine levels spike. Norepinephrine is released, causing your heart to race. Serotonin—the key hormone that regulates mood, well-being, and happiness—floods your brain. This is your body on flirting.
Most of the studies found higher levels of oxytocin during the orgasm or ejaculation. Given the sexual arousal evoked by self-stimulation in which sexual fantasies play an important role, it should be possible to postulate for a role of the oxytocin in sexual desire.
However, recent studies have begun to investigate oxytocin's role in various behaviors, including orgasm, social recognition, bonding, and maternal behavior. For this reason, it is now sometimes referred to as the “love hormone” and many such names described earlier.
Psychologically speaking, crushes occur when a person of any age projects their ideas and values onto another person whom they believe possesses certain attributes and with whom they want to be associated. Then, the person with the crush attaches strong positive feelings to this magical image that they have created.
Researchers have scanned the brains of people who are madly in love and found a heavy surge of dopamine, a neurotransmitter in the brain's reward system that helps people feel pleasure. Dopamine, along with other chemicals, gives us that energy, focus, and obsession we feel when we're wild about someone.
Chemistry is born of several different factors like physical attraction, mental stimulation, shared values and interests.
Estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone all affect sexual desire and arousal. Having higher levels of estrogen in the body promotes vaginal lubrication and increases sexual desire. Increases in progesterone can reduce sexual desire. There is some debate around how testosterone levels affect female sex drive.
Oxytocin is released in response to activation of sensory nerves during labor, breastfeeding and sexual activity. In addition oxytocin is released in response to low intensity stimulation of the skin, e.g., in response to touch, stroking, warm temperature, etc.
Its best to begin with light small touches on the arms and hands, to make the oxytocin effect kick in. Take her hand while taking to her (never ask for it, just take it), play thumb wrestling or pretend to read her palm or just play footsies under the table.
Men have been shown to be particularly sensitive to physical contact, so touch likely boosted their oxytocin levels considerably, Melton says. “Justifying small ways to make any activity one where we're touching our partner, whether that's touching of the arm or around the shoulder, [could be useful],” Melton says.
Oxytocin induces penile erection and copulatory activity by activating its own neurons in the rat PVN.
Sexually charged interactions trigger the release of the sweat gland--timulating the hormone norepinephrine. The oxytocin flood doesn't just affect your breasts; it also causes you to feel a tingly, warming sensation down there. Feeling like you're going to topple over when you chat up a hottie is totally normal.
Oxytocin triggers feelings of love and protection, which naturally occurs when parents and children look into one another's eyes or when they embrace. Other relationship-enhancing effects also include empathy, trust, and the processing of bonding cues.
Oxytocin is produced in the hypothalamus, a part of the brain. Females usually have higher levels than males.
“We know that we get a big hit of dopamine (our pleasure and reward hormone) and also a big hit cortisol (our stress hormone),” she explains. “So we're kind of wired to act on our attractions. We want to engage with this person, whether that's to reproduce or find a mate or just be connected...
If a boy really has a crush on you, then he'll be likely to give you all of his attention. He'll turn his body toward you, make eye contact, and won't look around for his other friends or text them during your conversation (unless he uses his phone as a crutch because he's nervous).
We tend to be more attracted to someone whose feelings are unclear. We think about them so much because we are trying to figure them out. It's a major reason why you can't get this new person out of your head. They are a complete enigma to you.